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Raymond Loewy

 
Art Encyclopedia: Raymond (Fernand) Loewy
 
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(b Paris, 5 Nov 1893; d Monaco, 14 July 1986). American industrial designer of French birth. He studied (1918) for a degree in engineering at the Ecole de Lanneau in Paris, before serving in the French Army. In 1919 he emigrated to the USA (naturalized 1938). After a brief period as a window-dresser he worked as a freelance fashion illustrator for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue (e.g. Metropolis advertisement for Saks Fifth Avenue from Vogue, 15 March 1927; see Wilson, Pilgrim and Tashjian, p. 86). Working in advertising design steered him towards industrial design. His disappointment with the quality and vulgarity of American products led him in 1929 to design and re-style radios for Westinghouse and duplicating machines for Gestetner. In 1934 he designed the Coldspot refrigerator for Sears Roebuck. Loewy's success was based on his rehousing of American products in streamlined forms in the 1930s. From the 1940s to the 1970s he worked on a number of commissions, such as the corporate logos of many major businesses, including British Petroleum and Shell Oil. Other successful projects were the designs for the S-I locomotive (1937) for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, styling for Studebaker cars (including the Avanti) from 1937 to 1962, the Dole Coca Cola dispenser (c. 1948), architectural designs for International Harvester dealer showrooms and interiors of NASA's Saturn-Apollo and Skylab projects (1967-73). He had offices in many American and foreign cities and enjoyed great success until the 1980s, when financial pressure led to the contraction of his business.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Raymond Fernand Loewy
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Raymond Loewy.
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Raymond Loewy. (credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)
(born Nov. 5, 1893, Paris, Fr. — died July 14, 1986, Monaco) French-born U.S. industrial designer. After obtaining an advanced degree in electrical engineering, he immigrated in 1919 to New York City, where he worked as a fashion illustrator and designer of department store window displays. He opened his own design firm in 1929, and in the 1930s and '40s he designed a variety of household products with rounded corners and simplified, "streamlined" outlines. A refrigerator he designed for Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1934) won first prize at the 1937 Paris International Exposition. In later years his highly functional designs for everything from locomotives to soda dispensers helped shape U.S. industrial design.

For more information on Raymond Fernand Loewy, visit Britannica.com.

 
Modern Design Dictionary: Raymond Loewy
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(1893-1986)

One of the most publicity conscious and productive of the American industrial designers who became feted as celebrities in the interwar years, Raymond Loewy did much to define the profession for subsequent generations. His consultancy was responsible for the design of almost every conceivable product type, from cigarette packs to streamlined steam trains and from dinnerware to dishwashers. Loewy did much to build up the mythology of the industrial designer as having the capacity single-handedly to transform all aspects of everyday life. This was seen in the 1934 design exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where he displayed a somewhat spartan, yet elegant, streamlined mock-up of his design office complete with stylish desktop drawing board, fashionable up-lighter, and tubular steel furniture. With only enough room for a single designer to work in, it belied the fact that industrial design consultancies employed a range of specialists who did much to bring the designer's ideas to readiness for mass production. This outlook was more graphically conveyed in the celebrated cover for Time magazine of October 1949. It featured Loewy set against a backdrop of products including an automobile, refrigerator, cooker, aeroplane, ocean liner, armchair, and fountain pen, as if he had designed them all single-handedly rather than working together with more than 150 employees. He also had a considerable eye for publicity photographs, appearing next to, standing on, sitting in, or using Loewy-designed products. His 1951 autobiography Never Leave Well Enough Alone did little to dispel his self-created myth.

Born in Paris, he studied engineering from 1910 to 1914 but received his degree in 1918, having interrupted his studies for army service in the First World War. Emigrating to New York in 1919 he found employment as a window-display designer for Macy's as well as graphic work for Saks Fifth Avenue, and fashion illustration for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Vanity Fair. Having established his own industrial design consultancy, Raymond Loewy Associates, in 1929, one of his first commissions was the redesign of the Gestetner duplicating machine (1929). Using a clay model to explore ideas for its form and appearance, he transformed an uncoordinated piece of office machinery into an elegant, efficient looking, modern product. As he became more successful Loewy was able to open a product, transport, and packaging design consultancy in Fifth Avenue, New York. Notable among his early commissions were the Coldspot refrigerator designs for the Sears Roebuck & Co. mail order firm for whom he began work in 1932. The most celebrated of these was marketed from 1935 and featured new materials and ideas such as aluminium shelving, storage baskets, a water cooler, and vegetable freshener, all contained within a styled, modern streamlined form. Loewy also worked in many fields of transportation design, his first major commission being the Hupmobile (1934) for the Hupp Motor Company. Loewy began his association with the Studebaker company in 1938 when the 1938 Studebaker was named the ‘Best Looking Car of the Year’ by the American Federation of Arts. After the Second World War Loewy worked briefly with automobile stylist Virgil Exner at Studebaker. Loewy's post-war designs for the company included the Champion (1947), the Starliner (1953), and the fibreglass bodied Avanti (1961). The critical success of the 1953 Studebaker range was such that it was even feted on the cover of Time magazine. Loewy also designed for railways including the 1937 S-1 locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. It was displayed at the New York World's Fair of 1939, where visitors could also view his Rocketport of the Future. From 1935 he was also consultant designer to the Greyhound Coach Corporation, producing designs for the streamlined Silversides motor coach (1940) and its 1954 replacement, the sleek, comfortable Scenicruiser. He even worked for NASA from 1967 to 1972, including the interior of Skylab. Other important companies that Loewy worked for included Coca-Cola, Lucky Strike, Rosenthal, Shell, and Exxon. After the Second World War Loewy's consultancy expanded, with offices in New York, Chicago, South Bend, Los Angeles, and London. Loewy also set up the Compagnie d'Esthétique Industrielle in Paris in 1952.

 
Architecture and Landscaping: Raymond Fernand Loewy
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(1893–1986)

French-born American industrial designer. After a chequered career he was retained by the Gestetner firm in 1929 to restyle their products, and his success prompted other firms to employ him (e.g. BP, the Co-op, Exxon, Lockheed, Shell, Studebaker). He designed automobile bodies, railway-engines and passenger-cars, refrigerators, the famous Greyhound buses, and the celebrated Coca-Cola bottle. He and his firm designed various corporate identity packages. Among his later works were the interiors of the Skylab for NASA (1967–73). He published Never Leave Well Enough Alone (1951), and must be regarded as a considerable influence on the late-C20 Western environment.

Bibliography

  • L‘Ad’A, ccxlvii (Oct. 1986), 96–8
  • Jodard (1994)
  • Loewy (1937, 1951, 1975, 1988)
  • Schönberger (ed.) (1990)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

 
Wikipedia: Raymond Loewy
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Raymond Loewy standing on one of his designs, the Pennsylvania Railroad's S1 steam locomotive.

Raymond Fernand Loewy (5 November 1893 – 14 July 1986) was one of the best known industrial designers of the 20th century. Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States where he influenced countless aspects of North American culture. Among his many iconic contributions to modern life were the Shell logo, the Greyhound bus, the S-1 locomotive, the Lucky Strike package, Coldspot refrigerators and the Studebaker Avanti. His career spanned seven decades.

Contents

Life and work

Loewy was born in Paris in 1893, the son of Maximilian Loewy, a Viennese journalist, and Marie Labalme. An early accomplishment was the design of a successful model aircraft which then won the James Gordon Bennett Cup in 1908. By the following year he was selling the plane, named the Ayrel. He served in the French Army during World War I, attaining the rank of captain. Loewy was wounded in combat and received the Croix de Guerre. He boarded a ship to America in 1919, with only his French officer's uniform and fifty dollars in his pocket.

Early work

In Loewy's early years in the U.S., he lived in New York and found work as a window designer for department stores, including Macy's, Wanamaker's and Saks in addition to working as a fashion illustrator for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. In 1929 he received his first industrial design commission to modernize the appearance of a duplicating machine by Gestetner. Further commissions followed, including work for Westinghouse, the Hupp Motor Company (the Hupmobile styling), and styling the Coldspot refrigerator[1] for Sears-Roebuck. It was this product that established his reputation as an industrial designer. His design firm opened a London office in the mid 1930s. It still operates.[2]

Pennsylvania Railroad

In 1937 Loewy established a relationship with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and his most notable designs for the firm were their passenger locomotives. He designed a streamlined shroud for K4s Pacific #3768 to haul the newly redesigned 1938 Broadway Limited (also by Loewy). He followed by styling the experimental S1 locomotive, as well as the T1 class. Later, at the PRR's request, he restyled Baldwin's diesels with a distinctive "sharknose" reminiscent of the T1. While he did not design the famous GG1 electric locomotives, he improved its appearance by recommending welded construction, rather than riveted, and a pinstriped paint scheme to highlight its smooth contours.

In addition to locomotive design, Loewy's studios performed many kinds of design work for the Pennsylvania Railroad including stations, passenger car interiors and advertising materials. By 1949, Loewy employed 143 designers, architects and draftsmen. His business partners were A. Baker Barnhart, William Snaith and John Breen.[3]

Studebaker

Raymond Loewy's 1930s era Studebaker logo

Loewy had a long and fruitful relationship with the American car maker Studebaker. Studebaker first retained Loewy and Associates and Helen Dryden as design consultants in 1936[4]:[p.247] and in 1939 Loewy began work with the principal designer Virgil M Exner.[4][5] Their designs first began appearing on late-1930s Studebakers. Loewy also designed a new logo which replaced the "turning wheel" which had been the trademark since 1912.[4]

During World War II, American government restrictions on in-house design departments at Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler prevented official work on civilian automobiles. Because Loewy's firm was independent of the fourth-largest automobile producer in America, no such restrictions applied. This permitted Studebaker to launch the first all-new postwar automobile in 1947, two years ahead of the "Big Three". His team developed an advanced design featuring flush front fenders and clean rearward lines. They also created the Starlight body which featured a rear window system wrapping 180 degrees around the rear seat.

1953 Studebaker Commander Starlight coupe

In addition to the iconic bullet-nosed Studebakers of 1950 and 1951, the team created the 1953 Studebaker line, highlighted by the Starliner and Starlight coupes (publicly credited to Loewy, they were actually the work Virgil Exner[6]). The Starlight has consistently ranked as one of the best-designed cars of the 1950s in lists compiled since by Collectible Automobile, Car and Driver, and Motor Trend. At the time, however, the Starlight was ridiculed as bizarre (very similar from front or back). The '53 Starliner, recognized today as "one of the most beautiful cars ever made",[7] was radical in appearance, as radical in its way as the 1934 Airflow. However, it was beset by production problems.[7]

To brand the new line, Loewy also modernized Studebaker's logo again by applying the "Lazy S" element. His final commission of the 1950s for Studebaker was the transformation of the Starlight and Starliner coupes into the Hawk series for the 1956 model year.

Avanti

Concept sketch of the 1963 Avanti by Loewy

In the spring of 1961, Loewy was called back to Studebaker by the company's new president, Sherwood Egbert, to design the Avanti. Egbert hired him to help energize Studebaker's soon-to-be-released line of 1963 passenger cars to attract younger buyers.

Despite the short 40-day schedule allowed to produce a finished design and scale model, Loewy agreed to take the job. He recruited a team consisting of experienced designers including former Loewy employees John Ebstein, Bob Andrews, and Tom Kellogg, a young student from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The team was sequestered in a house leased for the purpose in Palm Springs, California. Each team member had a role: Andrews and Kellogg handled sketching, Ebstein oversaw the project, and Loewy was the creative director and offered advice.

1963 Studebaker Avanti

The Avanti became an instant classic when it hit the market and has many devotees today; others consider its front end styling peculiar. Versions have been produced in limited quantities over the years by a succession of small independent companies, though never with real commercial success.

Death and legacy

Loewy became a U.S. citizen in 1938. He died in 1986 at the age of 93. In 1991, the Raymond Loewy Foundation was established in Germany to further promote the discipline of design internationally and preserve the memory of Raymond Loewy. An annual award of 50,000 Euros is granted to outstanding designers in recognition of their lifetime achievements. Grantees have included Phillippe Starck and Dieter Rams. He was married twice. His marriage to Jean Thomson ended in amicable divorce in 1945. He married Viola Erickson in 1948. Their daughter, Laurence, managed her father's interests in the United States after his death. She died October 15, 2008, in Marietta, Georgia.[8]

Loewy designs

Following is a list of Loewy designs presented chronologically.

1910s

  • Ayrel aircraft, 1908

1920s

  • Gestetner mimeograph duplicating machine shell, 1929

1930s

1940s

1950s

Union News restaurants coffee shop, at the TWA Flight Center, Idlewild
  • Coca-Cola Redesign of the original contour bottle, eliminating Coca-Cola embossing & adding vivid white Coke & Coca-Cola lettering, designed & introduced first king-size or slenderized bottles, that is, 10, 12, 16 and 26 oz. (1955) Later, in 1960, he designed the first Coke steel can with diamond design.
  • Greyhound Lines two-level Scenicruiser, 1954
  • Northern Pacific Railway, Vista-Dome North Coast Limited (exterior color scheme and interiors), 1954.
  • Studebaker Commander, 1953
  • Hillman Minx automobile, Series One onward, 1956-1959.
  • Leisurama homes, 1959

1960s

USCG Racing Stripe logo (1964)

1970s

  • Shell logo, 1971
  • Air France Concorde interior, 1975
  • NASA's Skylab space station, first interior design standards for space travel including a porthole to allow a view of earth from space, interior designs and color schemes, a private area for each crew member to relax and sleep, food table and trays, coveralls, garment storage modules, designs for waste management

Year or model not given

  • Frigidaire refrigerators, ranges, and freezers
  • Coop logo
  • Panama Line: Loewy designed the interiors for a trio of American-built passenger-cargo liners named the SS Ancon, SS Cristobal and SS Panama.
  • the Wahl-Eversharp Symphony fountain pen.
  • The International Harvester "IH" "Man on a tractor" logo.
  • Dorsett "Catalina", a popular early fiberglass pleasure boat.
  • Zippo Lighter[citation needed]

Publications

References

  1. ^ Coldspot Refrigerator
  2. ^ Loewy Group marketing agency
  3. ^ a b Up from the Egg, TIME Magazine, October 31, 1949
  4. ^ a b c Hendry, Maurice M. Studebaker: One can do a lot of remembering in South Bend. New Albany: Automobile Quarterly. pp. 228–275. Vol X, 3rd Q, 1972. 
  5. ^ Setright, L.J.K., "Loewy: When styling became industrial design", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 11, p.1211.
  6. ^ Ludvigsen, Karl, "Studebaker: Money--the Root of all Evil", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 19, p.2227.
  7. ^ a b Ludvigsen, p.2227.
  8. ^ [1]Laurence Loewy obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
  9. ^ DF-2000 line of modern furniture that combined the feel of home and office, Raymond Loewy DF-2000 cabinet
  10. ^ American Treasures of the Library of Congress, Design drawing for Exxon logo by Raymond Loewy
  11. ^ http://www.raymondloewyfoundation.com/de/raymond-loewy/loewys-arbeiten/spar.html

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Art Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art. Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Modern Design Dictionary. A Dictionary of Modern Design. Copyright © 2004, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Architecture and Landscaping. A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Copyright © 1999, 2006 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Raymond Loewy".  Read more

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